Web services architecture for providing federated data relating to a mobile device

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure is directed to a web services architecture comprising a component operable for rapid development of a web services application, a mobile application. The web services architecture also includes a telecommunications provider system and a service provider. The mobile application is related to the web services application deployable on a mobile device. The telecommunications provider system is operable to host the web services application and to identify the mobile device and federate information related to the mobile device. The service provider is operable to provide a mobile device service associated with the web services application. The service provider is in communication with the web services application and operable to use the federated information related to the mobile device to provide application services to the mobile device.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional of, and claims priority to, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/225,697, entitled A Web Services Architecturefor Providing Federated Data Relating to a Mobile Device, inventors WingK. Lee, et al., filed on Sep. 13, 2005, which is incorporated herein byreference for all purposes.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not applicable.

REFERENCE TO A MICROFICHE APPENDIX

Not applicable.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure is directed to providing telecommunication webservices to mobile devices, and more particularly, but not by way oflimitation, to web services architecture systems and methods.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The increasing popularity of network computing and the shift away fromthe use of standalone computer applications have significantly changedthe means by which computer software is developed and distributed.Software developers face a new set of challenges and require new toolsto create applications and manage dataflow across a variety of computersystems. Web services combine a diverse set of software components todeliver custom functionality to customers. Significant architecturalissues must be addressed during development of web services forinteraction to take place and data to flow properly between thecomponents of a web service and between various different web services.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one embodiment, the present disclosure is directed to a webservices architecture comprising a component operable for rapiddevelopment of a web services application. The architecture alsoincludes a mobile application, a telecommunications provider system anda service provider. The mobile application is related to the webservices application deployable on a mobile device. Thetelecommunications provider system is operable to host the web servicesapplication, and to identify the mobile device and federate informationrelated to the mobile device. The service provider is also operable toprovide a mobile device service associated with the web servicesapplication. The service provider is in communication with the webservices application and operable to use the federated informationrelated to the mobile device to provide the mobile device service to themobile device.

According to another embodiment, the present disclosure is directed to aweb services architecture comprising a telecommunications providersystem, a service provider and a mobile application. Thetelecommunications provider system is operable to host a web servicesapplication using one or more web services components, to identify amobile device and federate information related to the mobile device. Theservice provider is operable to provide a mobile device serviceassociated with the web services application, the service provider incommunication with the web services application and operable to use thefederated information related to the mobile device to provide the mobiledevice service to the mobile device. The mobile application is operableon the mobile device, is related to the web services application and themobile application using a time component associated with the mobiledevice for the mobile device service.

According to another embodiment, the present disclosure is directed to amethod for enabling web services for partners of a telecommunicationsprovider. The method comprising providing a location based web serviceand identifying a mobile device by a telecommunications network. Themethod includes providing identity information associated with themobile device to the web services partner and providing time informationto the web services partner. The time information is related to at leastone of the mobile device and the telecommunications network. The methodalso includes the partner providing a service related to the web serviceto a customer of the mobile device based on the identity information andthe time information.

These and other features and advantages will be more clearly understoodfrom the following detailed description taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings and claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a more complete understanding of the present disclosure and theadvantages thereof, reference is now made to the following briefdescription, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings anddetailed description, wherein like reference numerals represent likeparts.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that depicts a telecommunications architecturesystem and method for the rapid design, development and deployment ofweb services.

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary general purpose computer system suitablefor implementing several embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

It should be understood at the outset that although an exemplaryimplementation of one embodiment of the present disclosure isillustrated below, the present system may be implemented using anynumber of techniques, whether currently known or in existence. Thepresent disclosure should in no way be limited to the exemplaryimplementations, drawings, and techniques illustrated below, includingthe exemplary design and implementation illustrated and describedherein, but may be modified within the scope of the appended claimsalong with their full scope of equivalents.

In recent years, mobile phones and various portable communicationdevices, such as pagers, desktop and palmtop computers, personal digitalassistants (PDAs), and other telephone or hand-held wirelesscommunication devices have become increasingly important to society andcommerce. The applications content available for mobile device customerscurrently include short message service, e-mail, news, weather,financial information, e-commerce, and other services and informationsources. These mobile devices have always enjoyed wide acceptance inmany application areas due to their underlying advantage of powerfulcomputing capabilities in a simple, inexpensive and portable form.However, the mobile device has developed into a device capable ofhandling voice, image and data through telephony voice and datanetworks. These enhancements have made it possible to deliver a numberof custom solutions to the global population in emerging ways. Becauseof the explosive growth in the mobile device marketplace, there exists aneed for seamless integration of access methods using multiple types ofdevices and content hosts, i.e., convergence of mobile web services, inproviding comprehensive information and service environment forcustomers.

In an embodiment, the current system provides a set of architecturalcomponents that facilitate rapid design, development, deployment andsupport of mobile internet applications with reduced customizedprogramming, improved reuse of software components and compliance withstandard development frameworks. The number of potential products thatcan be built using the software development environment is considerable.Some embodiments of the present disclosure seek to maximize the use ofexisting components to eliminate repetition and thereby reducedevelopment time. It is not possible for any one enterprise to developall of the applications that are demanded by the marketplace. However,the telecommunications service provider has many of the features forwhich web services may be developed. The present disclosure provides aframework for the rapid development of enterprise web services. Theframework includes a library of business components that are requiredfor the development of web services. These business components are theinfrastructure that can be understood as a blueprint to enable andsupport the rapid design, development and deployment of component basedweb services. The framework leverages the creation of web serviceswhether the web services are the telecommunications service provider'sweb services or a third party's web services. For the purposes of thisdisclosure, the term web services includes the internaltelecommunications service provider web services, the third party webservices and any combination of telecommunications service providerand/or third party web services.

Various software tools are used in the development of web servicesapplications such as Microsoft .Net Studio, Sun Net Beans or othersimilar tools known to one of ordinary skill in the art. However, notall of the building blocks for web services are readily available.Although the application development tools exist as mentioned above, theapplications are incomplete without the web services framework. Webservices framework permits the telecommunications service provider toprovide web services to customers and pass information between its webservices partners. For example, assume a customer has elected to receiveweather information based on their current location. First, certaintechnical issues must be addressed including mobile deviceidentification, determining the location of the mobile device andproviding identity profile information to the web services partners. Aweb service typically performs all of the underlying work and providesresults in a format that is tailored to the individual customer's needs.Identified in this disclosure is a suite of components that will aid inthe development of telecommunication web services applications. Thus thepresent disclosure, in one embodiment, leverages the combination of thesoftware tools for building web services applications with the frameworkof components to support the web services.

Turning now to FIG. 1, a block diagram illustrates one embodiment ofsystem 100. The system 100 includes web services that may be external orinternal, may be the telecommunications service provider's web services80 or third party web services 70, may include mobile devices 60, mayinclude networks 50 like the internet, and includes the web servicesframework 110. The web services framework 110 includes one or morecomponents which may be part of system 100. The web services framework110 includes component that are available to pass data back and forth toweb services partners 70 in the acquisition, delivery, and marketing ofpotential web services. The web services framework 110 will be leveragedby a telecommunications service provider and most likely reside as apart of a telecommunications service provider system. The system 100includes various telecommunication and information technologycomponents. The system 100 includes a web services framework 110 whichmay include one or more computer systems or networks of computer systemsof a business enterprise as well as the software, applications andsystems operable on those computers.

The system 100 illustrates a telecommunication network 50 which may beor include a standard wired telephone network, analog, digital or otherwireless telecommunication networks, the Internet, or any networkoperable for voice, data, video or other communication ortelecommunication, or variations or combinations thereof. In the presentembodiment, the network 50 is operable, either alone or in concert withother systems to obtain location and identity information. The mobiledevice 60 is illustrated herein as a mobile telephone, although otherdevices could be used, such as mobile data terminals, laptops, PDAs, andother devices or combinations of devices. Illustrating the embodimentsof the disclosure with a mobile phone is not intended to limit thedisclosure to such handheld voice oriented devices, but only illustrateexemplary applications. The principles of the disclosure apply to anymobile computing apparatus, including those applications involvingcomputers integrated into vehicles, including computerized locationmapping display systems. Similarly, a variety of wireless protocolscould be adapted to implement the principles of the present disclosure.

In the preferred embodiment, the location and presence component 30 isused to determine the Global Positioning System (GPS) location or towerlocation of the mobile device 60 and to determine whether the phone isactive and in range of the network 50. The location and presencecomponent 30 is an internally hosted web service that thetelecommunications service provider exposes to the web services partners70. Thus, any web services partners 70 that desire to use location andpresence data in its application will use the location and presencecomponent 30 for this information. A customer may request informationbased on their geographical location for a variety of applications. Thegeographical location of the customer is assumed to be proximate to themobile device 60 (e.g., the customer is holding the mobile device 60),so that for practical applications the location of the mobile phone andcustomer are treated as the same. The location of the mobile device 60is obtained, for example, by using GPS technology implemented within themobile device 60 to obtain its location coordinates. The locationinformation is communicated to the network 50 in addition to a requesttriggering the information download. A device monitor 20 detects therequest and communicates with the location and presence component 30 todetermine the location of the mobile device 60. In one embodiment, thedevice monitor 20 may be a network authentication component operable tofor network authentication. In another embodiment, other means fordetermining the location of the mobile device 60 may be used and mayrefer to a collection of systems or subsystems.

To refrain from giving away web services for free, web servicesdevelopers typically require some kind of authentication before accessis permitted to their web services. When a customer uses the mobiledevice 60, the mobile device 60 negotiates a communication session withthe network 50 and in doing so authenticates the mobile device 60 as alegitimate telecommunications service provider's mobile device 60. Themobile device 60 can then be matched with a legitimatetelecommunications service provider account to obtain the customerinformation such as name, address, phone number and other similar data.The identity federation component 22 uniquely identifies the mobiledevice 60 and shares the information with web partners so that acustomer may use the web services partners' 70 service without having tologon to multiple web sites. For example, a customer would not have totype in a user ID and password at the web services partners' 70 yellowpages web site or other similar web sites because the identityfederation component 22 authenticated the customer information prior topassing the information to the web services partners 70.

The federated information may be a token that is passed between systemsor other similar methods may be used that are well known to one skilledin the art. Federating information with the web services frameworkallows the web services partners 70 to determine the type of mobiledevice 60, customer billing preferences, customer identification,location of mobile device 60 and other similar information. Thefederated information provides all of the data that is needed for theweb services partners 70 to provide web services to the customer. Forexample, when the web services partners 70 request information from thetelecommunications service provider, the telecommunications serviceproviders retrieves information such as the customer's name, address,account number, type of mobile device 60, mobile device 60 location andother similar data and packages the information into a token that issent to the web services partners 70. The web services partners 70 canopen and use the information to provide web services to the customer.

There are many situations where the customer's identity and otherpertinent information are needed to provide services to the customer.The user identity and profile database 26 is an internally hosted webservice that may be exposed to web services partners 70 as a carrierclass web service. The customer identity and profile information isstored in a database that is maintained and updated by the customer viaeither the internet or the mobile device 60. The database includes suchinformation as the customer's name, address, telephone number, sex, ageand identifies the services associated with a particular customer. Thedatabase may also include customer usage information and whether thecustomer is willing to accept advertisements from a third party.

The time component 24 is used to keep a universal time throughout thenetwork 50 that is current and up-to-date. This is also the case foreach mobile device 60 because the time clock on the mobile device 60 issynchronized each time the device connects to the network 50. The timecaptured by the time component 24 is relative to the customer's timezone, country and is also sensitive to daylight savings and othersimilar factors. This information can be critical where events arecaptured without communicating to external servers. For example, to theextent an application that runs on the mobile device 60 is storinginformation and events related to customer activity for laterpropagation to a server, the local timestamps may be used for tracking,reporting, auditing, verification (such as of purchases), or for amultitude of other purposes.

In the present embodiment, location based services component 32 isoperable to provide services such as location capability, navigationassistance, real-time traffic advisories, directory assistance, roadsideassistance, business or residential assistance, information servicesassistance, emergency assistance, and communications assistance. Atypical application of customer-specific location information isproviding location based services to the customer. In a location basedservice, the customer elects to receive a particular type of locationdependent information and this requires the network 50 to identify thecustomer. By definition, location based services 32 provide service onlyto a limited subset of customers and do not provide the servicegenerally to all subscribers. Thus, identification of the customer ishelpful in these instances.

The generic request describes the scenario when the service request andinformation download does not require identification of the customermaking the request. Generic services are usually used when all customersmaking the request for information receive the same requestedinformation. Services which are location based are generally not genericbased. Generic information download is used when a business at a givenlocation desires to make certain information available to any customermaking a request for information. For example, the network 50 maydownload information about a business (e.g., telephone contact number,hours of operation, etc.) to customers making a generic request forinformation at that business location (e.g. similar to advertising). Inthis type of application, the customer simply requests the informationand the web services partners 70 responds with information associatedwith the business.

Finally, there are service scenarios that are considered hybrid, as theydo not clearly fall within a single category. For example, some servicesmay be provided to all subscribers, but which still require thecustomer's identification. A wireless service provider could define asingle function key as identifying the same service across their network50 for all subscribers. One embodiment is a generic information servicethat provides information to a customer about movie showings at a movietheater with the option of ordering tickets. The purchase of a ticket bya customer requires identification of the customer if a credit card isbeing used. This service could be considered as customer-specific sincethe customer's identification is provided, but the service of providingmovie information could be viewed as generic, e.g., the information isnot unique to the customer. In such cases, the categorization of theservice is not critical, as the concept of categorization onlyillustrates the principles of the disclosure and is not intended tolimit embodiments of the disclosure or constrain the implementation. Asanother example, the service illustrated is a real-time traffic statusdisplay that indicated traffic congestion on a roadmap. The trafficstatus display is in graphical form and is designed to provide trafficstatus of a limited area centered on the location of the customer makingthe request. A typical application of the service is to provide trafficconditions to drivers in cars equipped with mobile display devices. Thiscould be a mobile telephone with a graphical display or an automotivecomputer with an integrated display device in a dashboard. The serviceallows the customer to obtain real-time traffic information based on thecustomer's current location.

Because the service embodiment is a location based service, only thoseauthorized subscribers may receive the information. To access theseservices, the customer has to first open the client application. Theclient application connects to the partner web service 70 to obtaintraffic information: the wireless device 60 connects to the wirelessnetwork 50 and is authenticated to device monitor 20. Since the webservice is external, the identity federation component 22 is invoked toget identity assertions for authentication to the partner. The call ispassed on to the partner web service 70. The web service 70 needslocation information for the device 60 so it invokes the location basedservices component 32. The returned location information is used by thepartner web service 70 to gather pertinent traffic information for thedevice location and returns it back to the wireless device 60.

In this example, the customer triggers the information download processby sending a request to the telecommunications service provider.Alternatively, an application process executing in the mobile device 60may trigger the request, based on various criteria including thelocation of the device and time.

The device monitor 20 is in communication with the network 50 and/or maybe operable to communicate directly with the switch or other componentsof the network 50. The device monitor 20 may comprise one or moresystems, and may, in some embodiments, be a component of or apart fromthe web services framework 110. In some embodiments, the device monitor20 may be operable to trigger an event to occur when a mobile device 60comes in proximity to a certain location and time. In the presentembodiment, the device monitor 20 communicates with network 50 or othernetwork components or systems to obtain the time and location of themobile device 60. For example, an enterprise may be interested to knowwhen a customer is within certain proximity of the enterprise's businessduring certain hours so that it may change the computerized advertisingon the storefront because it knows certain clientele are nearby.

A charging component 34 is an internally hosted web service that detectswhen a customer makes a purchase and passes the information to billingand/or accounting. For example, a customer may choose to pay for an itempurchased using the mobile device 60. The customer can store credit cardinformation in the mobile device 60 and transmit the credit cardinformation directly to the point of sales system at the business.Alternatively, the customer may choose to have a charge applied to thecustomer's telecommunications service provider bill. Thetelecommunications service provider and the web services partners 70will arrange payment of the funds. The charging component 34 wouldcommunicate with the user identity and profile database 26 to determinethe customer's preferences.

A customer loyalty component 38 is an internally hosted web service thatis exposed to the web service partners 70. The customer loyaltycomponent 38 is operable to reward customer for frequenting a particularenterprise. For example, a customer may be rewarded by receiving a freesandwich after the purchase of the tenth sandwich, depending on theaward program. In the present embodiment, that customer loyaltyinformation is stored off the mobile device 60 to prevent loss of datadue to powering down the device, loss of battery life or other similarevents. In the present embodiment, the web services partners 70 will beable to query the customer loyalty component 38 to determine whether thecustomer is eligible for a reward—a free sandwich as in the aboveexample.

A mobile coupon component 36 is an internally hosted web service that isexposed to the web service partners 70. Thus, any time the web servicespartners 70 have a coupon it wants to ship out to the customer, the webservices partners 70 may use the mobile coupon component 36. The mobilecoupon component 36 is a complete end-to-end functionality for deliveryand redemption of the coupon. The web services partners 70 creates thecoupon, which may be thought of as a graphic image that is downloaded tothe customer's mobile device 60. The coupon is then passed to thetelecommunications service provider exposed web service, which is thenpassed to the mobile coupon component 36 for delivery to the customer.The present embodiment provides the infrastructure that permits thecoupon to be transmitted to the enterprise where the coupon is to beredeemed so that the customer may actually use the coupon. For example,a coupon the gives the customer a twenty percent discount off thecustomer's next purchase or the purchase of a certain item at theenterprise's store.

Many of the mobile devices 60 now allow small applications to be loadedand run on the mobile device 60. For example, a range of mobile basedgames exists, some of which allow for collaborative gaming over themobile network. The application vending machine 40 is an internallyhosted web service that is operable to package and deploy such mobileapplications on the mobile device 60. Mobile applications are also beingdeveloped to allow customers access to remote computer systems. In thepresent embodiment, the telecommunications service provider has acatalog of applications that the customer can use the vending machine tobrowse, purchase and download to the customer's mobile device 60. Onceinstalled on the mobile device 60, the client application is operable toact as a gateway to services provided by the web services partners 70.

The notification component 42 is an internally hosted web service thatis operable to provide a customer's mobile device 60 with thenotification of a text message, Short Message Service (SMS) messages orother similar services. Accordingly, the customer may receive timelynotifications of incoming text messages or SMS messages regardless ofthe customer's location. A notification is generated corresponding tothe received information. The notification is transmitted from acommunication device to the mobile device 60 to display a real-timenotification. If the mobile device 60 is not available, the notificationis stored in a database and retransmitted to the mobile device 60 at alater time.

The system described above may be implemented on any general-purposecomputer with sufficient processing power, memory resources, and networkthroughput capability to handle the necessary workload placed upon it.FIG. 2 illustrates a typical, general-purpose computer system suitablefor implementing one or more embodiments disclosed herein. The computersystem 380 includes a processor 382 (which may be referred to as acentral processor unit or CPU) that is in communication with memorydevices including secondary storage 384, read only memory (ROM) 386,random access memory (RAM) 388, input/output (I/O) devices 390, andnetwork connectivity devices 392. The processor may be implemented asone or more CPU chips.

The secondary storage 384 is typically comprised of one or more diskdrives or tape drives and is used for non-volatile storage of data andas an over-flow data storage device if RAM 388 is not large enough tohold all working data. Secondary storage 384 may be used to storeprograms which are loaded into RAM 388 when such programs are selectedfor execution. The ROM 386 is used to store instructions and perhapsdata which are read during program execution. ROM 386 is a non-volatilememory device which typically has a small memory capacity relative tothe larger memory capacity of secondary storage. The RAM 388 is used tostore volatile data and perhaps to store instructions. Access to bothROM 386 and RAM 388 is typically faster than to secondary storage 384.

I/O devices 390 may include printers, video monitors, liquid crystaldisplays (LCDs), touch screen displays, keyboards, keypads, switches,dials, mice, track balls, voice recognizers, card readers, paper tapereaders, or other well-known input devices. The network connectivitydevices 392 may take the form of modems, modem banks, ethernet cards,universal serial bus (USB) interface cards, serial interfaces, tokenring cards, fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) cards, wirelesslocal area network (WLAN) cards, radio transceiver cards such as codedivision multiple access (CDMA) and/or global system for mobilecommunications (GSM) radio transceiver cards, and other well-knownnetwork devices. These network connectivity 392 devices may enable theprocessor 382 to communicate with an Internet or one or more intranets.With such a network connection, it is contemplated that the processor382 might receive information from the network, or might outputinformation to the network in the course of performing theabove-described method steps. Such information, which is oftenrepresented as a sequence of instructions to be executed using processor382, may be received from and outputted to the network, for example, inthe form of a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave

Such information, which may include data or instructions to be executedusing processor 382 for example, may be received from and outputted tothe network, for example, in the form of a computer data baseband signalor signal embodied in a carrier wave. The baseband signal or signalembodied in the carrier wave generated by the network connectivitydevices 392 may propagate in or on the surface of electrical conductors,in coaxial cables, in waveguides, in optical media, for example opticalfiber, or in the air or free space. The information contained in thebaseband signal or signal embedded in the carrier wave may be orderedaccording to different sequences, as may be desirable for eitherprocessing or generating the information or transmitting or receivingthe information. The baseband signal or signal embedded in the carrierwave, or other types of signals currently used or hereafter developed,referred to herein as the transmission medium, may be generatedaccording to several methods well known to one skilled in the art.

The processor 382 executes instructions, codes, computer programs,scripts which it accesses from hard disk, floppy disk, optical disk(these various disk based systems may all be considered secondarystorage 384), ROM 386, RAM 388, or the network connectivity devices 392.

While several embodiments have been provided in the present disclosure,it should be understood that the disclosed systems and methods may beembodied in many other specific forms without departing from the spiritor scope of the present disclosure. The present examples are to beconsidered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the intention is notto be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified withinthe scope of the appended claims along with their full scope ofequivalents. For example, the various elements or components may becombined or integrated in another system or certain features may beomitted, or not implemented.

Also, techniques, systems, subsystems and methods described andillustrated in the various embodiments as discrete or separate may becombined or integrated with other systems, modules, techniques, ormethods without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.Other items shown or discussed as directly coupled or communicating witheach other may be coupled through some interface or device, such thatthe items may no longer be considered directly coupled to each other butmay still be indirectly coupled and in communication, whetherelectrically, mechanically, or otherwise with one another. Otherexamples of changes, substitutions, and alterations are ascertainable byone skilled in the art and could be made without departing from thespirit and scope disclosed herein.

1. A web services architecture, comprising: a telecommunicationsprovider system operable to host a web services application using one ormore web services components, the telecommunications provider systemfurther operable to identify a mobile device and federate informationrelated to the mobile device; a service provider operable to provide amobile device service associated with the web services application, theservice provider in communication with the web services application andoperable to use the federated information related to the mobile deviceto provide the mobile device service to the mobile device; and a mobileapplication operable on the mobile device and related to the web serviceapplication, the mobile application using a time component for themobile device service, wherein the time component on the mobile deviceand a time component on the telecommunication provider system areperiodically synchronized.
 2. The web services architecture of claim 1,wherein time component on the mobile device is associated with a timecomponent on the telecommunication provider system, and wherein thetelecommunications provider system includes a network to promotewireless communication and a supporting computer network.
 3. The webservices architecture of claim 1, wherein the mobile device service usesat least one of the time components.
 4. The web services architecture ofclaim 1, wherein the time component on the mobile device is used whenthe mobile device is not in communication with the telecommunicationsprovider system.
 5. The web services architecture of claim 1, wherein atleast one of the time components of the mobile device and thetelecommunications provider are used for one of arbitrating andauthenticating aspects of the mobile device service.
 6. The web servicesarchitecture of claim 1, wherein the one or more web servicesapplications include: a customer loyalty component operable to promotecustomer loyalty to the web service; a coupon component operable tomaintain, to redeem coupons, and to push coupons out to the customer; anapplication vending machine component operable to package mobileapplications and deploy mobile applications on the mobile device; alocation based services component operable to provide a mobile devicecustomer with information based on the current location of the customer;a device monitoring component operable to triggers web services tocustomers and web services partners based on time and location of themobile device; and a charging component operable to process customermobile commerce transactions.
 7. The web services architecture of claim1, wherein the web services are further defined as selected from a groupof web services including a location based service, a notificationservice, an instant message service, a text message service.
 8. A methodfor enabling web services for web services partners of atelecommunications provider, the method comprising: providing a locationbased web service; identifying a mobile device by a telecommunicationsnetwork; providing identity information associated with the mobiledevice to the web services partner; providing time information to theweb services partner, the time information related to at least one ofthe mobile devices and the telecommunications network; the web servicespartner providing a service related to the web service to a customer ofthe mobile device based on the identity information and the timeinformation, wherein the time information related to the mobile devicesand the time information related to the telecommunications network areperiodically synchronized.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein identifyingthe mobile device includes at least one of communicating between themobile device and a telecommunications provider system to identifyphysical characteristics of the device, and identifying personalinformation of the customer associated with the mobile device.